TV: “Bates Motel” Rents A Room To A Dying Olivia Cooke

In just a few dyas now “Lost” “Heroes” and “House M.D.” director Tucker Gates will be getting behind the camera to start filming the 1-hour pilot presentation of A&E’s upcoming series “Bates Motel,” which serves as a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock horror classic Psycho and examines the twisted relationship between serial killer-to-be Norman Bates and his mother Norma. Vera Farmiga is locked as Norma Louise Bates, Freddie Highmore as Norman and Max Thieriot as his brother.

Now, per Deadline, Olivia Cooke (pictured below; The Quiet Ones) will be taking a role. She’ll play the eccentric and extremely bright Emma, who has a disease that could take her life early and gives her a sense of adventure and that time is of the essence.

The Universal TV-produced Bates Motel has a 10-episode straight-to-series order for a 2013 premiere. Former “Lost” co-showrunner Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin (“Parenthood”) serve as writers-executive producers. “Bates Motel” had been developed as a miniseries when A&E bought it in January. When Cuse and Ehrin boarded the project two months later, they reworked it as a series and wrote several scripts. That prompted A&E’s July decision to forgo a pilot and go straight to series.